The most widely-used form of primary storage for computer memory is a volatile form of random access memory (RAM). With volatile RAM, a loss of power causes the computer to shut down and stop operating resulting in any run time states stored in the RAM, which hasn't been written out to the disk to be lost. Also, the system has to be fully reinitialized when the power is restored. Run time states include information on system configuration, open applications, and active files, which are stored in main memory (RAM), while most of the system's other components are turned off.
Existing systems are instructed to enter suspend-to ram (STR) mode. STR mode occurs when a system enters a low power state. The system is instructed via many ways such as a timer, a lid close of a laptop, hardware button, keyboard press or another explicit user command. The system may resume operation upon events such as a lid open of the laptop, hardware button, timer, keyboard press or another explicit user command. Currently, with many OSs, the time it takes to reach STR mode often reaches multitudes of seconds and even longer depending on the state of the computer system, such as unwritten data stored in the memory. Furthermore, operations involved in reaching the STR mode may be prone to failure, for example due to failure of memory allocation and, more commonly, due to failure to suspend peripheral devices.